“If the lady wishes it, you may pass,” I answered shortly, my eyes never leaving his face.  “Otherwise, if you take so much as another step I will crush every bone in your body.”

He saw I meant it, but there was no cowardice in him; and the steel had already flashed in the sunlight to make good his threat, when she touched me gently upon the shoulder.

“I beg you do not fight,” she urged.  “I am not worthy, and ’t is all unneeded.  Captain de Croix,” and she swept him a curtsey which had the grace of a drawing-room in it, “’t is indeed most strange that we should meet again in such a spot as this.  No contrast could be greater than the memory of our last parting.  Yet is there any cause for quarrel because this young gentleman has preserved my life?”

De Croix hesitated, standing half-poised for attack, even his glib tongue and ready wit failing as she thus calmly questioned him.  Indeed, as I later learned, there was that of witchery about this young girl which held him at bay more effectually than if she had been a princess of the royal blood,—­a something that laughed his studied art to scorn.  She noted now his hesitancy, and smiled slightly at the evidence of her power.

“Well, Monsieur, ’tis not often that your lips fail of words,” she continued, archly.  “Why is it I am made the subject of your quarrel?”

The slight sarcastic sting in her voice aroused him.

“By all the saints, Toinette!” he exclaimed, striving to appear at his ease, “this seems a poor greeting for one who has followed you through leagues of forest and across oceans of sand, hopeful at the least to gain a smile of welcome from your lips.  Know you not I am here, at the very end of the world, for you?”

“I think it not altogether unlikely,” she replied with calmness.  “You have ever been of a nature to do strange things, yet it has always been of your own sweet will.  Surely, Monsieur, I did never bid you come, or promise you a greeting.”

“No,” he admitted regretfully, “’t is, alas, true,”; and his eyes seemed to regain something of their old audacity.  “But there was that about our parting,—­you recall it, Toinette, in the shadow of the castle wall?—­which did afford me hope.  No one so fair as you can be without heart.”

She laughed softly, as though his words recalled memories of other days, pressing back her hair within its ribbon.

“Such art of compliment seems more in place at Montreal than here.  This is a land of deeds, not words, Monsieur.  Yet, even though I confess your conclusion partially true, what cause does it yield why you should seek a quarrel with my good friend, John Wayland?”

“You know him, then?” he asked, in quick astonishment.

“Know him!  Do you think I should be here otherwise?  Fie, Captain de Croix, that you, the very flower of the French court, should express so poor a thought of one you profess to respect so highly!”